30 the Beaux-t-\rts, and whose return to her native country was like the shifting in space of ..In astrono111ical body pull- ing the orbit of the p1anet Lachaise after i t. To earn his passage 1110ney Lachaise went to work as a 1110del1cr for René Lalique, then busy setting jewels for Russian grand dukes, and at the end of a few months he had earned what he needed: this being the only time, he confesses, that he has ever he en able "to control hi111self for savinQ"." '-- His 111arriage took place after ten years of work in Arnerica. Although his wife remains the inspiration of 1110St of his important work, she has very sel- dom actually posed for him, and one of the portrait heads which he is sure is not a success is the one he 111ade of her. F ROM the m0111ent he ca111e to America he woke up and was con- vinced instantly that "the new world dI!!9 / "" ... ,<,;. '. f:. ;.(-:: ,y . ; :... "": ii .::1 '- .., ,:\; . .,' .',;- I .' tl, r ' , ...."" :;:: -::::::: ;-.: '.:." ',. . :. ..: -:.j :.-.; .-::-:: is the most favorable place to develop a creative artist." He was not yet a formed personality when he reached A111erica and the rush of energy \vhich is so appalling and disastrous to somè foreigners was entirely sV111pathetic to him. His own capacity for work is endless; when he ca111e to New YOïk after a few years in Quincy and Bos- ton, he would spend twelve hours in the studio of Paul Manship as an as- sistant and then seven or eight hours rnore in his own studio beginning the series of rnasterly sculptures which have 111ade his fa111e. His association with Manship lasted several years. The 111e111orial tablet to J. Pierpont Morgan, which was placed in the :\;letropolitan M useU111 of Art, was desIgned by the two sculptors in collaboration and the actual carving was done by Lachaise. He also worked on the lVlanship head of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., especially to catch certain of the surface qualities, transferring to stone the texture of skin. But the te111pera111ents and the des- tinies of the two 111en were totally at variance and eventually Lachaise left. Lachaise carves his own statues, , : t ..",:,,:,}' .. ", pi >G'" '.:' '::::", ',;':-:' . . =::., . * :# j:'- :-;.:.:.' ..::.. .:.;; . . '::"{i:: \: ......:-..; .. _ ;:;;,:;;'i'<.< ts ., .../' W " ;;': .: . =f . ":,. '.J' ':1>' :/ '. ,:.,.\::.., : :I: \ """"'" >:. ...\.... \ ' . It,.- " .If '\ "\ , .::.:.," , . , ..: : , : , ; , , . ' . :, , ; ,: , ' " b " :; : .:" ,r , , , . . , . :,,: ' , ' : ' ','..<,,' w ,,-,., ".., ;' ''t.,:q: " , t, ....*.,..::--$ , #$. , fI"'<>'(1" < ,''t,J7- ...., ,', -i:: , '.f.it ,: , ,,:, $ \ .à , ;;, : : t , ::, . ':, . . , , : . : : : ,, : : . . ,.;. _ "";; ;. ;/t (f:xf$ /f l{ .. .i('" ';';'-jf..\ :"" , : :::,' ' t;(".,. :: ' >:: :: ::: :,,:,' ". . ,,:. f .' /ß0 ;.lIt .ø;,:.øf ",,: ,". '". -:. :.s : : ,w' \,/>'; "Really, it doesn't bother me at all." )\'PI\I L 4-, I 9 3 1 actually cuts his own stone. He has rnade his own plaster casts and can do casting in bronze, but these processes are 111echanical, while the carving of stone, direct or after a plaster cast, is a funda111ental process for the creative artist. By working on stone hi111self he pays a greater tribute to his 111aterial than 1110St of those artists who are con- tinually talking about respect for the stone and letting assistants carve their statues. Lachaise suspects that "respect- ing your material" is a cliché with very little meaning. His hand and his chisel have been long enough on marble and granite to pass far beyond respect and to penetrate to their true nature. There is in each 111aterial, he says, a resistance which the sculptor 111USt overC0111e, and "Vvhen this is done the stone responds, collaborates with the sculptor, and pre- vents him fro111 making errors. But if he atternpts to overpower the force of the stone, to violate its nature, and to ask it to do i111possible things, the stone vlÜI S111ash. \Vhatever alabaster, Hud- son 131 ue, or bronze or Carrara is cap- able of may legiti111ately be done. And as for rare 111aterials, he shrugs his shoulders. He is perfectly willing to work in concrete, which he declares to be a rather difficult rnediu111, but as legiti111ate as. the purest rnarble. Lachaise has had to skip entirely that stage in an artist's work between ob- scurity and greatness, the stage of pub- licized success out of which 111 an y artists never move, hogged in the luxuriant and rather pleasant swa111p of social estee111 and easy 1110ncy. ()n the other hand, every piece of sculpture which he has made in stone or 111etal in the last fifteen years has been bought, and the only things left in his studio are plasters which have not yet been cast or cut. It is re111arkable also that his chief patrons stand at the tvvo cxtrernes: con- servative collectors and museums on one side, and what might be called the J]ial group on the other; so that he is represented in the coIlections of Adolph Lewisohn and J-\lfred Stieg-litz si111ul- '-- taneously, and has done a statuette for Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and a head of E. E. CU111111ings, and been praised by Royal Cortissoz and Paul Strand, and appears in the American Telephone & Telegraph Building and in Gallatin's Gallery of Living Art. W HEN he worked twenty hours .a day, his single relaxation came at four in the morning as he read the records of Arctic and Antarctic exploration before going to sleep for